Photo: Le Fooding

Summer's salad days -- which some calorie-counting, bikini-wearing types take literally -- are coming to a close, as beach bags are upended and emptied of sand across the country.

September always has us craving heartier fare: cheese, bread, red wine, prosciutto, frites. We start clicking on plane fares to Europe, only to shudder at the prices.

Thank goodness, then, that Paris is doing us a favor and hopping stateside this September in the form of several events. Francophiles in New York City and beyond might be intrigued by 'Le Fooding,' a two-day urban picnic held at P.S.1, one of the city's fairer museums, on September 25th and 26th.

A dozen well-known Parisian and New York chefs will be joined by mixologists, DJs and performance artists in a two-day extravaganza. We wouldn't have given it much pause if we didn't see the famous Bo Ssam from Gotham's Momofuku on offer alongside grilled chicken necks drizzled with yuzu by WD-50's Wylie Dusfresne and several tempting items from a variety of well-known Parisian eateries. Tickets are $30 per day, and we're liking the Friday night lineup.

Look no further than Beer Suggest, a new website that - well, isn't it obvious?

The site is a work in progress, with its simple design and rudimentary tools (it only went live about a week ago). So far, the site boasts over 4,000 beer listings and over 1000 breweries. There are also beer-centered events, and reviews of various brews.

Think you can walk the walk when it comes to beer? Register for an account, and feel free to review and rate beers. Check here for the current Top 10 lists of rated and reviewed beers, including the Shiner Bock and the Gonzo Imperial Porter.

The site is slow to load, so be patient. But with a few tweaks and a few more ratings, it could develop into a seriously helpful tool for beer lovers.

White truffles may be in season, but the theme of this month's Sugar High Friday, the popular sweets-oriented food blogging event, was the more chocolaty - and perhaps more indulgent - type of truffle. The roundup of all the participating blogs was just put up by Johanna, the passionate cook and host of this edition of the event. If you want to try your hand at making truffles, all of the entries will provide lots of inspiration. Some of the recipes include Hazelnut Nougat Truffles, S'mores Truffles, Kahlua Truffles, Strawberry Balsamic Truffles (which use dehydrated berries for flavor) and Salted Caramel Fudge Hearts, just to name a handful. The black on black truffles pictured above were made by Veronica's Test Kitchen and are a classic truffle recipe, using high quality chocolate, cream and a little bit of butter. The truffles are rolled on cocoa powder to keep them from sticking together, as well as to simulate the earth that the other kind of truffles are found in.

If you happen to be in the Los Angeles area this coming weekend and are looking for something to do besides the usual beach, pool, and shopping, the inaugural Los Angeles Wine and Food Festival will be taking place at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

On the food front, Iron Chef Cat Cora and celebrity chef David Lawrence will be serving up food demonstrations and their favorite cooking tips. Gourmet food vendors will also showcase a diverse sampling of their goods. For the oenophiles, there will be wine tastings from over 100 wineries, including Vinissimo, Stacked Stone Cellars, Cambria Estate Winery, Saint Helena Road Winery, Bridelwood Estate Winery & E'cluse Wines, as well as discussions on the latest wine trends like the recent popularity of Australian wines, the rise of rosé, and boxed wines and screwcap bottles versus traditional corking.

Tickets cost $65 per person, or $120 for a couple, and are available for purchase online.

If you're in the Bay area, or even within reasonable traveling distance of San Francisco (does six hours from LA count as "reasonable?!?"), you are very lucky. On Thursday, June 1, 2006, the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association is hosting a scholarship benefit called East West Eats. 

Even if you're not familiar with the AAJA, the event itself is worth consideration from a food lover's perspective. It takes place at the Ferry Building, San Francisco's amazing public marketplace (which we recently visited and fell in love with). Foods will feature Charles Phan of the Slanted Door, among other Bay Area chefs: Robert Lam of Butterfly, Hung Le of Three Seasons, Peter Pahk of Silverado, Kirk Webber of CAFE KaTi, and Chris Yeo of Sraits.

Online registration for the $100 tickets will close this Thursday, May 25, 2006.

Two more festivals occuring this coming weekend in the south of England and Wales:

Kent Game Fair - plenty of non-food things happening down near Maidstone such as rural crafts, flower displays, livestock competitions and the like, but plenty food-related, too, including food courts, local producers and a Game Cookery Threatre.

Llanwrtyd Festival of Fine Food and Drink - in Britain's smallest town, a weekend packed with the finest foods Wales has to offer. 68 exhibitors - wine, liquers, jams, chutneys, preserves, ice creams, chocolates, bread, meat and catering equipment, plus local crafts people with goods for sale and French Jazz band. And don't forget the custard pie fight!

Darling, do you dare drizzle Danish Blue on your Dover sole or dunk your doughnuts in dark chocolate?

We hope you do, daaaah-ling, because next Wednesday, January 18th, Slashfood is eating the letter D! That's right, Slashfood's next theme day isn't a dish; it's not an ingredient; it's the fourth letter of the English alphabet - D.   

Don't ask us how we came up with the idea. We were all a little hungover from the last Spirited Cooking theme day, and coming out of a deep Holiday food coma when we all decided that "D" was absolutely brilliant. Yes, brilliant.

So, dust off your Webster's, turn to page 471, and start looking for something to make that starts with "D." Throughout this week, we'll have some suggestions and ideas to bring out your inner-Scrabble-champion. I couldn't think of a single vegetable except daikon.

On Wednesday, we'll give you a place to post a link to your lovely creations, and who knows? We might even have prizes!

 

So I'm poking around trying to motivate myself to plan a trip up to the Bay area sometime in the next few months, when what to my wandering eyes do appear, an announcement that SF Dine about Town is here!

The San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau and Visa are sponsoring this city-wide, month-long event that is now in its 5th year. There are almost 100 Bay Area restaurants that are participating by offering a three-course prix fixe meal at lunch ($21.95) or dinner ($31.95) or both.  Reservations specifically for SF Dine About Town can even be made via OpenTable.

I think the event is purely a promotional thing for both the Convention Bureau and Visa during a month which is typically slow for restaurants. Works for me, because a few of the restaurants are on my SF To-Dine List (A16!). Although, now I need to find a way up to SF. Unless we can convince Visa to do the same thing in LA!